All language subtitles for Phantom.Signals.Series.1.1of6.Curse.of.the.Lost.Cosmonaut.1080p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org_3_text

Narrator: A distress signal is
overheard from deep in space.

Podlaskaya: Sounded like
she was talking to somebody.

Narrator: Authorities deny
it ever happened.

The soviets were anxious to
cover up some of their mistakes.

Narrator: Voices of the dead
torment soldiers in vietnam.

Very much like somebody
coming from the beyond.

Narrator: Do these spirits
have a message for the living?

Dr. Kislenko:
He tells them,

"it's time to leave
before you die."

Narrator: Massive thunderclaps
come out of nowhere,

But there is no storm in sight.

I mean, you got to run
for the hills

When you hear
something like that.

Narrator:
Endless streams of data,

Information bombarding
the planet from within

And from the furthest
stretches of the universe --

What messages do these
phantom signals hold?

-- Captions by vitac --
www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by
discovery communications

♪♪

1960 Italy.

Battista brothers achille,
a cardiologist,

And giovanni,
a forensic scientist,

Build their own
radio listening station

In an abandoned
world war ii bunker

Using scavenged
and borrowed equipment.

They claim to have
intercepted communications

Of russian and u.S. Astronauts
to their ground controls.

Though intriguing, most of
the broadcasts are routine.

But then something else,
something chilling.

The battista brothers had
multiple claims

That they had
a tracking station

Which gave them the ability
to track

Low earth orbiting satellites
or manned space travel.

Among some of
their larger claims,

They had a recording
of what seemed to be

The last words
of a soviet cosmonaut.

[ woman speaking indistinctly ]

According to their claim,

The spaceship was flying away
from earth in a trajectory

That didn't take them across
the horizon,

Just pointing away so the signal
kind of just slowly died out.

Among other things, they had
what sounded like a heartbeat,

Sounded like someone
breathing, potentially,

And there was also, I believe,
a transmitting s.O.S. Signal

That didn't have
the doppler effect.

So it means it was traveling
away from earth

Because it kept getting quieter
and quieter and quieter.

Narrator: The brothers claim
this secret communication

Is the last transmission
of a cosmonaut

Trapped in a doomed spacecraft
floating helplessly in space.

The soviet government denies the
existence of any manned missions

Prior to the flight
of yuri gagarin in 1961.

But rumors of
early space flights

Ending in disaster
haunt the soviets.

Nass: Right, so I guess
the concerning thing

For a lot of people at the time

Is that we're in a situation
where the soviets

Are potentially
putting people into space

In a kind of
undocumented fashion.

If that were the case,
then it would be a cover-up.

Dr. Kislenko: The idea that the
russians would lose cosmonauts

As part of their
training program in general

And then specifically in space
is plausible.

It's not out of the realm
in part because

We don't know everything
from soviet archives.

The space race was one of
the most competitive times

In u.S. History
and russian history.

And what drove that in many ways
was the competition

Between
the russian space program

And the american space program

To demonstrate
the technological capacity

To be able to send humans
to space.

Again, the russians
beat the americans

By literally probably
a month or so.

Dr. Kislenko: If you could be
the first to conquer space,

It reinforces the idea that your
state has a tremendous amount

Of potential capacity
and integrity to it.

It was a tough time because you
were looking for those firsts,

You know, the first spacewalk,

Dr. Kislenko:
The soviet union was always
an enormously secretive society

Of keeping all information
to a very bare minimum

In closely guarded hands
to preserve this idea

That the ideological experiment
that was the soviet union

Was undefeatable,
that it was perfect.

But we have no real
corresponding evidence

In terms of documents,
even defectors that came out.

We lack that sort of
smoking gun, as it were,

To say definitively
these guys were in space.

Narrator:
But if the recordings are real,

The brothers have evidence
that russia launched

Two or more manned space flights
prior to gagarin.

If they're not, where do
these transmissions come from?

Is this a distress call
from somewhere else?

Whether or not people were
eavesdropping and able

To hear something different,
I don't know.

Narrator:
Between 1960 and 1964,

The brothers supposedly record
thousands of hours

Of both telemetry
and communications

From missions
including sputnik, vostok,

And even the u.S. Mission
explorer.

The soviets dismiss the battista
brothers' claim as a hoax.

But still, the haunting russian
voice of the distress call

Was not so easily forgotten.

The distinct things
that I was able to catch

On the first try --

She was counting down.

She was saying, "three, four,
five, three, four, five."

She also said, "okay, okay,"

The word that you use

When you respond
to somebody talking to you,

And you acknowledge
that you understand

What they're saying.

Based on the tone of her voice,

It sounds like she was listening
and responding.

So it wasn't just her speaking
independently of anybody else.

It sounded like it was within
the context of a dialogue.

In the middle of the clip,

That's when she was
most agitated.

In her tone,
it didn't come out

That the distress was due
to any kind of emergency

Or unsafe situation.

I think it sounded more like

She was trying to reiterate
something louder

Because she wants to be heard.

Narrator: A few years later,
on July 20th, 1969,

America would be the first
and only nation

To land a man on the moon.

This incredible achievement
inspired an event

That would suddenly
call into question

The soviet dismissal of
the battista brothers' claims.

A pair of amateur
radio enthusiasts in kentucky

Are directly listening in on
the highly anticipated mission.

Larry baysinger, former military
radio technician,

And journalist glenn rutherford

Tapped the frequency of
12-watt radios using vhf radio.

They bury 6,000 square feet of
copper plating in the backyard

To ground the equipment.

The antenna is made
from chicken wire and aluminum,

The radio receiver
from a korean war tank

Found at an army surplus store.

Baysinger makes
some adjustments.

Aiming the antenna at the moon
made more difficult

Because it's a cloudy night,

They manage to record
35 minutes of the moon landing.

By and large,
we're just throwing signals

Out into the air all the time.

If you had the right equipment
and set it up,

You could intercept
those signals

And hear what was being said,
at least by the astronauts

When they're talking
back to earth.

Nass:
He built his antenna basically
with scratch-built material.

He's using wood for some of
the stabilizing arms.

And from all of his effort,

He was able to build a beam
antenna for receiving signals

That were coming from the moon.

Back then, most of these
transmissions were unencrypted.

They were just basically able
to receive them

Using army surplus equipment.

Assuming that there was
something in low earth orbit

Or in a launch trajectory
away from earth,

And they had
an appropriate transmitter

Capable of reaching earth,

I don't see any reason why
that there couldn't be someone

On the ground
picking up those signals.

Narrator: The two listen in,
amazed by their success

As astronauts speak
to president richard nixon

And remark on the play
of shadows on the lunar surface.

So larry's listening
to the vhs signal

Directly from the moon,
so he heard it first.

He heard it seconds ahead
of when it got turned around

By the news stations
and sent out.

Narrator: Is it conceivable
that in the 1960s,

Amateur equipment

Assembled and monitored
by casual civilians

Could pick up russian
space program transmissions?

Nass: Radio, in a simplified
description,

Would be imparting information
onto a radio signal

That you're using some kind of
antenna to push out.

Receiving would be the antenna
is picking up the signal,

And that is then getting
pushed out into the speaker

That you're listening to,
or the headphones.

Narrator:
In the early space race years,

The communication systems
from the vostok mission

Are based on vhf communications,

143.625 megahertz,

But also on
shortwave communications

Using strong transmitters

Belonging to the ussr
ministry of communications.

Even today, 45 years after
the end of the space race,

Radio frequencies are easily
captured from space.

Nass:
Just as a demonstration,

We can set up a simple antenna
that doesn't even move,

And it will just pick up
the signals

That are being downlinked
by the satellite.

So right now, we're trying
to catch the downlink

Of the upcoming noaa
weather satellite path,

Which goes from south to north.

It's downlinking a rf stream
that we're gonna pick up

And convert
back into an image file

Which we can see on the screen
for weather patterns.

As the satellite's
passing overhead,

It's basically going to be
downlinking different images

That it's captured
as it's gone over the world,

Basically, to show
interesting weather patterns

For
the national weather service.

This is 137 megahertz,

Which is the same space
of frequencies

That is used today
by low earth orbiting satellites

And manned international
space station-type satellites.

Larry has a recording
of an apollo mission.

It is likely that the battistas
could have recorded

Something else
which happened later

When technology
improved a little bit

During the cold war.

Narrator: So if it is possible
to intercept such a signal,

Why are the soviets
denying the entire existence

Of the transmission
and the event?

If you fail, it obviously casts
a pall of doubt

Over whether or not

You have the technological
acumen that you claim to do.

Nass:
At the same time, the soviets

Could just easily say,
"eh, never happened."

And that's exactly
what they did, right?

They said, "nope, we don't know
anybody like that.

We've never had anybody
on the books like that.

Narrator: Were the phantom
transmissions picked up

By the battista brothers

Really the dying words
of a soviet cosmonaut?

In this cloak-and-dagger era,
how far will the russians go

To make sure no one posed a risk
to their plans?

Narrator: 1960.

Two italian brothers
build a radio-listening station

In an abandoned
world war ii bunker,

Claiming they've picked up
russian space mission

Radio signals.

But things take
a much darker turn

When they intercept
what they describe

As the dying words
of a cosmonaut

Trapped in a failing spacecraft.

[ woman speaking indistinctly ]

Dr. Proctor:
I think the last thing that
they ever would have imagined

Is that they would pick up
a transmission

Of the last moments
of someone's life in space.

Many people thought that
there would be tragedies

Exploring space.

Dr. Kislenko: People died
on a fairly routine basis

Because of technological
and scientific error,

Programing problems,
pilot error,

Whatever you want to call it.

I'm absolutely convinced
soviet leaders at the time

Were saying, "we cannot afford
the public to understand

That we make mistakes

Or that we're gonna own up
to our mistakes,

Because then
anything's fair game."

Narrator: Recently declassified
documents reveal the soviets

Are potentially covering up
multiple cosmonaut injuries

And deaths --
more than previously thought.

When we talk about the
space race for either country,

You're in a whole world
of conspiracies.

The so-called sochi six is
rather notorious photograph

Taken of the elite graduating
class of soviet cosmonauts,

And it has been doctored
over time to remove some people

From what I think originally
was 11 astronauts down to 6.

Narrator: Why are only some of
the cosmonauts' faces

Physically removed
from these photos?

At the core of it is this notion
that there were cosmonauts

Who died
in orbital flight missions

Before yuri gagarin in 1961.

This was not the first time
the soviet union

Had doctored photographs.

It's not just that they died.
Some of them never existed.

They're erased from history.

And they do that
to make it very clear

That there's one narrative
in soviet history.

Any failings along the line
of that official narrative

Were seen to be
either counter-revolutionary

Or to challenge this notion
of soviet supremacy.

Narrator: With these
and even more rumors

Haunting
the soviet space program,

What would be the repercussions
of the cold war?

You can imagine the impact
in a place like the soviet union

Where the same revelations
aren't just gonna be sad

Or bring up questions about cost
or, you know,

That it's gonna speak
fundamentally to the regime.

If the russians had a mistake
or something went wrong,

They were not gonna let that out

Because it was
all about success.

Doesn't take much
to logic through that and say,

"well, if you've made a mistake

And I can question
your validity,

Then I'm gonna do it
in a lot of other ways,

Like whether or not
you should be the only party

And whether or not
you should be the government."

Narrator: Out of fear
of appearing vulnerable,

Could soviet government
officials actually keep

The deaths of cosmonauts
completely covered up?

There were a lot of things
that the soviets did

That we still
don't fully understand,

Even with the release
of documents and archives

And discussions
with people in the period.

Nass: What bothers me the most
about it is if it was a hoax,

Tracking that stuff,
I find interesting enough.

It didn't have
to be sensationalized

Into possibly a cover-up.

Either it's bad because
the soviets actually did

Cover something up,

Or you had these brothers
that were possibly doing this

For fame
or some kind of attention.

Dr. Kislenko:
We need more evidence.

We lack documentary evidence
to suggest

That any of the cosmonauts died
in secret missions

That were never announced
to the public.

We have a couple of documents
that say,

"let's keep soviet failures
down to a minimum,"

But that doesn't
necessarily confirm

That the soviets were in space

Before they say
they were in space.

Narrator: Though
the iron curtain fell in 1991,

Many of the records remain
classified or missing.

I think any time you're engaged
in this kind of,

You know, tremendous exploration
of the unknown,

There's going to be
this kind of doubt.

Narrator: We may never learn
the full details

Of the russian space program

Or how many cosmonauts
were lost,

But they will
never be forgotten,

Due in large part
to the early radio experiments

Of the battista brothers.

On the evening
of February 10th, 1970,

In the jungles of vietnam,

A horrible wailing torments
the people of hau niga province.

[ howling and thumping ]

♪♪

The sounds of people screaming,

Crying, gongs banging,

And a child
calling for her father

Are followed by a clear message

That came from the voice
of a dead vietcong soldier.

"my friends, I am dead."

Then a warning
to his former brothers in arms

To turn back
and give up the fight.

Dr. Kislenko: Pretty scary.

Very much like somebody
coming from the beyond,

In this particular case
coming from hell.

He's wondering.

He's basically,
at least initially, unclear

Whether he's alive or dead

And making
a very emotional appeal

To fellow soldiers in the field

To stop fighting
before it's too late.

Narrator:
If the spirits of the dead
can reach out to the living,

Could the jungles of vietnam
really be haunted

By the ghosts
of their dead comrades?

Dr. Kislenko:
It's very powerful.
It is scary.

This is like the twilight zone.

Narrator: Or could
the horrible wailing sound

That threatened
to drive these men to madness

Have another meaning?

Narrator:
By the late 1960s,

The u.S. Is embroiled
in a terrible war in vietnam.

Thousands of casualties
are inflicted on both sides

As the conflict spirals
out of control.

The conditions
for this particular war

For both sides were horrific.

If the jungle doesn't get you

With disease and rain
and leeches and insects,

Obviously the enemy will.

And this was not easy warfare,

Just sending in 3,000 tanks
in a field.

This was getting down and dirty
in a very inhospitable jungle.

So the vietcong soldier who was
used to all the jungle sounds

And can sleep through it

Is now hearing something
they have no experience with.

Dr. Kislenko:
These things happened
in the middle of the night.

You know, you can imagine
it's absolute silence,

It's pitch dark, and then
pretty much out of nowhere,

You hear this dreadful sound
echoing.

[ howling ]

Dr. Fallah: You hear a sound.
You look.

You start saying,
"is it there, is it there?"

And then when
there's nothing to see,

Your mind starts trying
to make sense of the world.

So what could it be

That you can hear
but is invisible around you?

Narrator:
It is the vietnamese belief
that the dead must be buried

In their homeland,

Or their soul will wander
aimlessly in pain and suffering.

So when you die, your soul goes,

And that's why it has to be
properly accounted for.

You need that burial
to take place.

It needs to be commemorated.
It needs to be in your homeland.

And if it's not,
your soul wanders.

And that is the worst
hell on earth for vietnamese.

Somewhat, I guess,
to christians

Worrying about
being in limbo forever.

Your cultural background
goes a long way

Into your normal
everyday experience growing up,

Which also goes a long way into

How you make sense
of the world around you.

Scorpio:
It's a buddhist belief that
you're bound to your homeland

And your family.

You might have lived
in the same village

For five or six generations,

So you have a very, very strong
connection to that land.

Dr. Kislenko:
And what they come to do is to,

In effect,
worship dead ancestors.

They offer food
as well as sometimes money

And other goods to the dead
as a means of appeasing them

And honoring them.

In the mind
of a vietcong soldier,

If you're hearing these voices,

There's already
a cultural aspect

Where you expect to be

More connected with the spirits
in the world around you,

That there's this idea
there are spirits.

These are profound beliefs
in vietnamese religion

And vietnamese culture.

And that's a big part
of what these boys

Fighting in the jungle
believed in.

And then that might lead
to this idea,

If you've grown up in a culture
where there are more spirits,

There are things you can't see
in the world around you,

That you might start attributing
it to other things like that.

Narrator: If these are
the voices of departed soldiers,

What message are they trying
to get across to the living?

Dr. Fallah: These sounds
that we're talking about

Weren't terribly clear
to begin with.

They were a little hard
to hear and understand

So that you've got this kind of
series of possibilities

For what that sound can be.

And then within a few seconds,

They're talking to you
as a person,

As a fellow soldier, asking you,
"why are you fighting?

Why are you still here?
Why don't you go back home?"

Dr. Fallah:
A rational person who's rested

Easily comes into,
"well, these aren't real,"

But they're in
a stressful situation

That causes that noise
to increase

And opens up
the number of possibilities

From their own memory
and experience to draw upon.

Scorpio: If you combine
their spiritualism

And their belief system,
I can easily understand

That they would be
in a state of confusion

And totally believing
that that's real.

Narrator: The mysterious voice
heard in the jungle appeals

To his vietcong brothers.

It tells them to go home.

"this is your chance to leave
before you die

And wander the earth

Because there is no one
to bury you."

Moaning, the groaning,
the dialogue from a dead soldier

Who you can identify with,

And in the middle
of the darkness,

In the middle of a war
which you know

You have a pretty good
likelihood of getting shot at

Or getting killed,
that must have been terrifying.

Arama: I don't know how I would
have reacted myself

If I was one of
those vietcong troops

With their belief system.

I think I might have run as fast
as possible in a state of panic.

Narrator: But even if
just one soldier experienced

Hearing a ghostly message,

How could the same event
be reported by an entire group?

So the idea of mass hysteria,
when somebody is stressed out

Or under some physiological
change that they can't explain,

Other people sometimes end up
feeling the same way themselves.

When you're sitting
in a group of people,

You end up getting to
an average emotional state

Based on everybody involved.

So if everybody's anxiety
raises a little,

The average raises a little.

You get this kind of
infectiousness.

When you have a lot of people
starting to make that report,

Then you got to think that
it's not about an individual.

It's not a single type
of stressed person going crazy.

It's more that
there's got to be something else

That everybody's experiencing
such that a number of them

Experience it so strongly
that they're willing to speak up

About it
to everybody else around them.

So even the most educated and
trained and scientific of us all

Are suspect
to that kind of fear factor.

Dr. Fallah: I do think
that there's a lot

We don't understand
in the world,

And we don't entirely know
what is going on.

When we don't
understand something,

We have generally put it in
the realm of the supernatural.

Narrator: Could these be
the voices of the dead pleading

For their comrades
to save themselves,

Or is there a darker origin
to these recordings?

Narrator: In the jungles
of the vietnam war,

A horrible wailing torments
the people of hau niga,

The sounds of people screaming,

Crying, gongs banging,

And a child
calling for her father

Are followed by a clear message

From the voice
of a dead vietcong soldier.

"my friends, I am dead."

Dr. Kislenko: If you're in
the jungle at night,

You hear horrifically
ghostly sounds,

You hear moans, you hear groans,
and then you hear somebody

Talking to you
as if they're dead,

Which makes you think,
as a vietcong soldier

That it's one of your comrades
and, of course,

Could be you
at any particular moment.

Narrator: Are the jungles
of vietnam haunted,

Or are there
other forces at work?

Perhaps we can find a clue
in the fact that the sounds

Seem to start appearing
at a specific time in the war.

I think the invading force
obviously would have

Had more technology
and maybe bigger numbers.

So that's probably helping
their adrenaline a bit.

But it might have been a false
adrenaline in a sense, too,

Because the vietcong troops --

They would have been
totally accustomized

And acclimatized
to the surroundings,

Easily 1,000% better
than the americans.

So you hear the sound
in the woods,

And you're in a ditch
with your comrade,

And you're gonna
look around first

To see where it's coming from,
because if you can see

What it is,
you can make sense of it.

Then you start getting into
increasing your stress levels

And your concern about it.

Dr. Kislenko:
So you are constantly afraid,

And that's where the conditions
are really ripe

For messing with your mind.

And that's precisely where
the americans come up

With psychological operation.

Narrator:
Ghost tape number 10

Is part of a recently
declassified

U.S. Psychological warfare
campaign

Known as
"operation wandering soul."

Nass: So then we find out about
ghost tape number 10,

Which was basically a collection
of voices in vietnamese

Saying things like,
"this is your ancestor.

Stop doing what you're doing
'cause you're going to die."

Dr. Kislenko:
There's a variety of messages.

This is not just one.

There are messages of
pretty simple ones, right?

"run away. Come to us.
We're gonna win this war.

You're fighting the americans

Who, you know,
have superior technology

And training,
and they'll kill you."

The one that's sort of
most famous and most haunting

Is this idea of,
you know, the displaced soul.

Various sources will tell you
that it started in 1970,

But there are historical records
about using similar tapes

Much earlier than that
in the 1960s.

Some will tell you it was
only used in south vietnam,

But we know for sure
that they were used

In places like laos
and cambodia, too.

Nass: Later, we find out
that they, of course,

Were using them
with p.A. Speakers.

They were connecting them
onto helicopters

And flying around areas

That they thought there might
have been the north vietnamese

And using that in possibly
an effective way,

Although it's never been claimed
by the north vietnamese

At all at that time
or later historically

From people who were fighting
at the time

That it had an effect
of actually scaring them away

From their course of action.

Arama: If you combine
their spiritualism

And their belief system,

You'd be shocked at
how people start to think

And start to hallucinate.

Narrator: U.S. Engineers spend
weeks recording eerie sounds

And altered voices
which pretend to be

Vietcong killed in action

For use in the operation
with the intended purpose

Of instilling a sense of turmoil
in the enemy.

The resulting tape,
dubbed "ghost tape number 10,"

Is played on loudspeakers
outside u.S. Bases

And sometimes
from patrolling helicopters.

The voices call on their
descendants in the vietcong

To defect and cease fighting.

Who would want to hear
a ghost story

When you're in the middle
of those conditions, right?

It's like, you know,
when you're a kid at a campfire

And you get spooked
by a ghost story.

You know,
this is ten times worse, right,

Because there's actually people
out there trying to kill you.

It's this super-sensory overload

Because you're not able
to control it.

When your body and your mind

Has gone through
that level of stress,

You can't push things aside
as easily

As you could otherwise,
and it's those type

Of environments
that lead people to snap.

Arama: A big debate among
survival experts

Is what's more important,

The psychological
or the physiological?

I think most research
points at the will to live

In the psychological
as the key,

'cause the minute you panic,
you're dead.

Narrator:
The stress of jungle combat
conditions for the vietcong,

Primarily sleep deprivation,

May have also worn down
their psychological defenses.

When you have sleep deprivation,
starvation, severe dehydration,

Those all play
into your psychology.

When you're deprived
of all the basic essentials

For physiological survival,

Your brain does go --
it goes wacky.

But hardly any of the experts
talk about sleep deprivation

Because it's so abstract.

Sleep deprivation changes
our control

Or the steadiness in our brain.

Normally, we kind of have
a signal

Where we vary in a small range
when we're rested

And have right nutrition.

But when we're sleep-deprived,

We get these high variabilities
to everything going on.

And that means things that
so far out of range

From our normal experience,

You might think
are really happening.

Arama: And all of a sudden
even the so-called expert

Is hearing things
and have no idea what it is,

'cause they're hallucinating,
they're delusional.

Their mind's not gonna operate

The way a normal person's mind
will.

They're gonna be
susceptible to suggestions.

They could have
psychotic breaks.

They could
exhibit hallucinations

Like schizophrenia.

Arama: Your body has to rest
to replenish everything

And make good decisions.

So if you're seriously
sleep-deprived,

You're gonna make
the worst choices.

And that's what we call
the domino effect,

And it leads to
worse choices and death.

The stress means
every little thing

Is going to have
a major impact on you.

And how do I trust the men
next to me in the war

If they're starting to go crazy?

Narrator: "wandering soul" is
part of the official effort

To convince the vietcong
to surrender.

Unofficially,
the american troops

Tried many different
psyops tactics

In their attempt
to accomplish this task.

Dr. Kislenko:
The american playing-card thing,

Which is featured in many
vietnam war-style movies,

Is the calling card for death.

Dr. Fallah: If you can win
the battle of the mind

Before you get
into the physical battle,

You're going to have
an advantage.

It's like, you know,
the maori when they famously

Go into battle
doing their tribal dances,

Making faces, right, at death.

Dr. Fallah:
The maori use the haka

To try to intimidate
their opponents

Before engaging in battle.

That sends
a psychological signal

About the kind of enemy
you're fighting.

Narrator:
This isn't the only attempt

By the american psyops division
to terrify the north vietnamese

Into surrendering.

Dr. Kislenko:
Very, very famously,

One of the ghost tapes involves
tiger sounds.

[ growls ]

There are rumors that
americans took a tiger scream

And then put it on tape

And then went out
into the jungle,

Having already circulated
among soldiers

The notion
that they were tigers

And then later that night

Broadcast this manufactured
tiger sound.

[ tiger growls ]

Narrator: So what is the impact
of this psyops tactic?

Arama: It was guaranteed
there was an effect.

I would say that the americans
were very smart

To do what they did because
there's a good possibility

That it would have
reduced the morale,

At the very least.

Dr. Kislenko:
According to american documents,

There were several thousand
defectors

Over the course
of the late 1960s and early '70s

Under investigation revealed
that they were at least in part

Motivated by these ghost tapes.

Narrator:
While it's hard to measure

The success
of operation wandering soul,

The tapes undoubtably put fear
in the hearts

Of whoever heard them.

Every night they played,
the jungles of vietnam

Came alive
with the voices of the dead,

Convincing some soldiers
to put down their weapons

And return home
to their families.

November 14th, 2017.

911 emergency lines
are inundated with calls

From 15 counties in alabama.

Residents reported
hearing a loud boom...

[ boom ]

...Like an earthquake
or a cannon...

[ boom ]

...Coming from the sky.

I can't imagine how terrifying
it would be to be standing here

And suddenly hear a huge
explosion or booming sound...

[ boom ]

...And as I look around,

Not being able to see
the source of it.

There's just this loud
cracking boom.

[ boom ]

Witnesses describe
what essentially

Sounds like a large cannon boom.

[ boom ]

Almost like an earthquake,
but it's above.

Narrator: The national
weather service announced

That they couldn't explain it,

As did the national
geological survey and nasa.

The massive boom didn't appear
to have a natural source.

[ boom ]

What was it?

The answer, it seemed, lay in
a centuries-old phenomenon

Known as skyquakes.

Skyquakes are a phenomena
where there's a very loud noise,

But when you look around,

There's nothing obvious
that's causing that noise.

The booms are extremely loud,
so loud, in fact,

That they often
set off car alarms.

[ car alarms blaring ]

And you can imagine that people
were like, "what was that?"

What happens when
there's thunder

But no clouds in the sky?

Where is that coming from?

Narrator: What is behind
these baffling sounds?

Pre-science, people would
have been terrified.

They would have thought
that it was a voice from god

Or some kind of bad omen.

A loud crack,
a boom, a growl, a rumble,

Some sudden, abrupt noise.

It's just coming
from somewhere out there.

You can hear it distinctly,
but you don't know why.

Narrator:
Skyquakes appear to have
no connection to the weather,

But could these behemoth sounds
be coming from the earth?

Or are they the product of some
unknown presence in the skies?

Narrator: Residents in
15 counties in alabama

Flooded the 911 emergency system
in November 2017,

Reporting mysterious thundering
sounds coming from the sky.

[ boom ]

The best explanation that can be
found for the terrifying boom

Was that they were a mysterious
phenomenon known as skyquakes.

[ boom ]

They are heard in every part
of the planet.

They strike out of nowhere.

[ boom ]

There is no apparent link
to the source.

What theories could possibly
explain their origin?

One of the more compelling
explanations I have heard

Is that these skyquakes
are caused by earthquakes.

Mckinnon: The earth is moving
all of the time.

Tectonic plates on the surface
of the earth

Are moving about the same rate
your fingernails grow,

So they're creeping along.

They get stuck, and they break.

It's kind of like
when you snap your fingers,

You're building up
the stress tension

Until it overcomes the friction

And you hear it
in the form of a snap.

So you can imagine taking
something like rock

That is fused together

That's under
a tremendous amount of strain

And then slipping and breaking.

A majority of the energy
released by earthquakes

Are actually released
by shallow earthquakes,

Which are earthquakes
that are happening

Closer to the earth's surface

Than ones
that we typically think of.

It can be possible
that an earthquake will occur,

And we won't feel it,
but it can produce a sound.

An earthquake generates a couple
of different types of waves.

One of them is a "p" wave,
a pressure wave,

Which is like
if you're splashing water

And it moves and pushes,

The next one that follows
is the "s" wave,

The shear wave,
that's moving back and forth.

So if you take a shoelace
and wiggle it,

That would be
the shape of a shear wave.

When pressure waves
are moving the earth,

That earth is then vibrating
almost like the skin of a drum

Or the membrane
of a loud speaker

And causing the air
to also vibrate.

It transmits that wave
from earth to air,

Which then people can hear.

That means that the bigger
the earthquake is,

The bigger the amplitude
of that "p" wave,

The louder it's going to be.

Things like how cold
or how warm

Or how much moisture in the air
can affect

How sound propagates
through the air.

Mckinnon: Sound propagates
in all sorts of different ways,

And it can travel through rock.

Rock doesn't block sound.

In some ways,
it can even amplify sound

Depending what the frequencies
are and what your geology is.

The cool thing is that
because sound is an energy

And it's propagating out,

It can be subject to
the dynamics of the atmosphere.

It can bounce those vibrations
around and transmit them

Into places you wouldn't expect.

If we use krakatoa as an example

Of how you can have
a distant phenomena

And that sound under
just the right conditions

Travel what seems absurdly far,

Then suddenly it starts getting
a lot more plausible to look at

Maybe it's some earthquake
or landslide

Or eruption or meteor
or explosion somewhere else

That's under just
the right conditions

So that sound is traveling
very, very, very far.

Dr. Hayes: This is one
possibility that has some merit,

Although my understanding is
that it's harder

To track these ones
and that they don't seem

To follow typical patterns
of earthquakes.

Narrator:
While this explanation
would seem like an easy one,

It fails to explain
how some skyquakes

Don't have seismic readings
to accompany them.

Breaking the sound barrier
could definitely create a boom

Where you can't immediately
tell what the source is.

A sonic boom is when something
is traveling faster

Than the speed of sound,
so instead of sound waves

Just propagating out
sort of in all directions,

All the sound waves build up and
it arrives at you at one time,

So you get a very loud noise
all at once.

And it can be enough
to rattle windows

And can travel over
quite large distances,

Narrator: Is human technology
behind this bizarre phenomenon?

People have heard skyquakes
around the world for centuries.

Sonic booms are
an interesting theory,

But they don't really hold water

Because there's been testimonies
about skyquakes

Going way back before
jets were even invented.

Narrator: But again,
this theory has holes in it.

What could cause sonic booms
in the centuries before jets?

There must be something
in the atmosphere

Creating this percussion.

Sparling:
The vast majority of objects

That do enter the atmosphere
explode in the atmosphere.

Often large meteors,
if they do enter the atmosphere,

They're entering
at supersonic speeds.

They produce sonic booms

If they're large enough
of immense proportions.

Especially during the daytime
when meteors enter

The earth's atmosphere,
it's not always visible

Because of the the sunlight
in the bright sky.

We don't see the the streak
of light associated with it.

There is a potential for space
objects to enter the atmosphere

And cause a loud bang.

Nothing makes it to the ground,

But you would have --
if you were standing near it,

You would have the perception
of something exploding

Or a huge bang above you,

But no resulting cause
would be visible.

Dr. Hayes: That might be
an explanation for some,

But it just doesn't seem
to account for all of them

And for the diversity of them
around the world.

The world is full
of infinite possibilities,

And all of science
is trying to narrow down

To the most likely.

There may be an angle
in skyquakes

That we can relate to ufos
or extraterrestrial visitation.

There is a long history
of people seeing ufos

That vanish
in the blink of an eye.

Viggiani:
And some ufos have been tracked

At speeds
of over 7,000 miles an hour.

Dr. Hayes: I assume that
if they are visiting earth,

They've learned to exceed
the sound of speed long ago,

And this is not
a problem for them.

Maybe they're playing around
with the atmosphere.

Maybe they're playing around
with the physical reality

Of what we see,

And they're just creating
weird effects.

There's all kinds of things that
might be accounting for that

If you consider
extraterrestrials

As responsible for that.

Narrator: When we hear
something strange from above,

We look to the sky for answers.

But is it possible the answers
are right beneath our feet?

Narrator: Theories abound as to
the origins

Of earth-shaking booms
erupting from the sky.

Some believe these sounds
come from ufos.

But is the real origin
more earthly?

Very few, if any,
reports that I've ever read

Describe any loud sound
as a result of a ufo.

Dr. Hayes: At first it seems
plausible maybe,

Or it seems exciting
or enticing.

But when you really start to get
into the mechanics of this

And you get into the history
of ufo sightings

And what those usually
actually comprise,

They're quite different
phenomena.

And under those circumstances,
you would think

That there would be
some displacement of air

Or some sort of shockwave.

But very few of the incidents
that have reported to me

Have reported any kind of
percussive sound at all.

Narrator:
If the source of this phenomena

Does not originate in the skies,

Is the answer lying in wait for
us at the bottom of the ocean?

Most, or all, skyquake reports

Happen near
a large body of water,

Possibly because this helps
the sound to travel.

You might think that
there's nothing happening

Below the surface of the ocean,

But there's a tremendous amount
of things happening.

Mckinnon: All sorts of things
are happening underneath

The ocean surface at any time.

We're only seeing the waves
up at the top,

But underneath is an entire
rich geologic world.

There are volcanic eruptions
that happen underwater.

There are earthquakes.
There are landslides.

There are pieces of volcanoes
that break off,

And you have a flank collapse.

All of these things
are happening underwater,

And sound travels
really well underwater.

There's some layers
of the ocean

That conduct sound
incredibly well.

They act almost as a wave guide,
bouncing the signal along.

But the thing about that is

It would also register
as an earthquake.

Mckinnon:
It looks like a sharp jolt

And then chaos as the smaller
pieces crumble out,

And it fades off fairly quickly,

Just like if you had a stack
of books and you drop them.

It's loud boom

And then the pieces kind of
tumbling off to the sides.

And you get the quieter pieces
falling down,

You see the same thing
in the seismic signal.

Dr. Proctor: Seismometers are
extremely sensitive,

So even though it might happen
in a remote part of the ocean,

Most likely we're gonna
pick that up.

We've got a lot
of seismic sensors,

But we don't have a whole lot
of the hydrophones,

Which you can think of as being

A really highly sensitive
3d microphone underwater

That can pick up vibrations
in any direction

And tell you what direction
it's coming from,

How big it is, what frequency
it is, what does it sound like.

And if you've got your three
points, you can back trace

And triangulate back
to where its source was.

But the oceans are really,
really, really big.

So even though we have
a global network,

It's still possible to have
places that we're missing.

Narrator: Could there be
any easy answer to skyquakes,

Or is the truth murky?

I think it's comforting
to people

To have one solid explanation
for something.

Something happens,
and there's one single cause.

It's just easier
to wrap your head around.

Kosiba:
Science is always growing,

Otherwise it would be
a really boring field

If we just figured
everything out

And we could explain everything.

Just because there's not
an easy explanation right away,

That doesn't mean that
you're not working towards it.

Sometimes we can take folklore
and story as hints

That we should investigate more.

There's a story of the day
the mountain moved

In the rocky mountains
of canada,

And it turns out
it was a loud cracking noise

That when investigated later,

There was a landslide
where there hadn't been one

The last time
people went through.

And then one day
there was a giant landslide,

The frank landslide, one of
the most deadly landslides

In canadian history,
and the mountain moved again

As it cracked and rumbled
and buried the town.

We could have used those stories
as a warning,

As a precursor,
as a way of exploring more.

Dr. Proctor: There's most likely
not one explanation

For all of the different types
of skyquakes we hear about

From around the world.

Mckinnon:
We definitely know landslides
create large, rumbling booms.

We definitely know
earthquakes can be acoustic.

We definitely know that meteors,
when they explode in the air,

Can create a sonic boom.

All of these are things
we've seen, we know,

We have observed repeatedly,
we understand.

If we actually
do solve this mystery,

It's probably going to be
the result

Of several different things
happening.

Mckinnon: Although we're
recording data all of the time,

We don't always know
what to look for.

There's so much happening that
we're trying to find a signal

In all of the noise.

Narrator: The next time you hear
a boom coming from the sky,

You might want to duck for cover
or brace yourself,

Because despite all
our understanding of science,

The world around us
continues to be

Both awe-inspiring, terrifying,

And beyond our control.